Wow…. Anyone else speechless? The President just compared a man who murdered millions of Vietnamese because they didn’t agree with him politically to Thomas Jefferson who championed freedom and liberty for everyone. The only comparison I can possibly make between the two is that both were involved in revolutionary movements in their respective countries. That is where the similarities stop.

Jefferson wanted liberty and freedom from tyranny while “Uncle Ho” sought to enforce his will on others. Jefferson sought to set men free from government while Uncle Ho sought to enslave them to his ideas. How does one determine that freedom is equal with tyranny unless you think like the statist from George Orwell’s 1984:

“War is peace.
Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.”

If you think along those lines, along the lines of the irrational, along the lines of those who would say or do anything to exert their will over others, maybe, just maybe one can equate liberty and tyranny.

Another advocate with close ties to the White House effort expressed frustration with the inability to create the bipartisan consensus Obama has praised in public.

“There is a sort of nativist craziness from a sort of number of people who never want any of their information about their gun ownership in the hands of the government,” the advocate said. “Those things are hard to deal with because it is essential that those records are kept somewhere.”

Nativist craziness? Why is it essential that records of gun ownership be in the hands of the government? Who benefits from that? The citizen certainly doesn’t. We’ve seen time and time again in history how that ends up.

“Essential?” To whom? Call me a “nativist crazy” I guess but whatever bill emerges into intolerable act, we will disobey it.

…

The people who seek to destroy the Founders’ Republic in order to achieve their “higher purpose” are, at the core of them, fanatics. They seek our liberty and property in service to their “right-thinking.” It is ironic then that they call us “gun fanatics” when in fact all we seek is to be left alone with our God-given, natural and inalienable rights to life, liberty and property.

He also discusses an encounter with a man who wants advice on how to bury a gun, so that it can be dug up after the craziness blows over. Mike answers on a more philosophical level, but the long and short is already an accepted maxim:

Coburn, the group’s ambassador to gun rights groups like the National Rifle Association, won’t accept a record-keeping requirement on the grounds that it could lead to government overreach. Schumer and Manchin, who are in regular contact with gun control groups, say any bill without a records provision would be as toothless as an honor system.

Why does the government need teeth against the citizen? That’s not the function of government.

What kind of land do you want to live in where the government desires teeth against the citizen? What kind of land is it that doesn’t trust its citizens? What kind of nation thinks that its citizens can’t be trusted with freedom, that an “honor system” letting people live as they like is a dangerous thing?

Only despots despise their people and don’t trust them. This just goes to show the character of Democrat Ruling Class would-be dictators like Schumer and Manchin, and why they can’t be trusted.

Any government power without a check against it by the citizen would be as toothless as an honor system. And we’ve seen how disarmament works, over and over and over again.

Produced by the JPFO and the late Aaron Zelman. I’d seen it years ago (JPFO had it on their website for a long time), but it looks like somebody went to the work to upload it to youtube. Take a few minutes and you’ll find yourself watching the whole thing. It’s a very good look at the big picture and the long run view of why the Second Amendment and the citizens right to bear arms is so critical to freedom.

(CNSNews.com) – Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) said only the federal government should have “high-capacity” gun magazines and that the “state ought to have a monopoly on legitimate violence.”

I will reiterate, as I have done many times in the last week, and many times over the last few years, that the purpose of civilian firearms ownership is to prevent tyranny by the state. The citizen also possesses the tools for legitimate force (Nadler uses “violence”, which is somewhat chilling) in order to defend the smallest minority of one. The citizen is armed in order to prevent corruption of the state and to preserve the state as an institution of liberty, not an instrument of oppression.

When only the state has guns, it’s easy for Democrats not to add in the state’s use of violence…

Nadler continued: “Now, the fact of the matter is that Germany has 150 or so people killed a year with guns;

If you ignore that Germany is still standing at some 10,000,000 murders they’re accountable for – because they had the guns and used their monopoly on violence.

…Canada, 170; the United States 9,000 to 10,000 a year. We have a murder rate with guns that are 15 to 20 times higher than any other industrialized country. There’s only one explanation and that’s the availability, the easy availability of assault weapons and of high-capacity clips.”

There’s only one explanation that an anti-gun Democrat can come up with. Of course, it ignores that the safest areas of the country are those with highest rates of gun ownership, and the safest nation in the world is one where almost every home has an actual full-auto assault rifle and a healthy supply of ammunition.

And Germany, right next door, had genocide… while the Swiss, strangely, did not. Hmmmmmmm…

I was planning to post a bit more about how the ATF’s Operation Fast and Furious had led to just about zero with regards to repercussions for the perpetrators, and how their criminal enterprise that armed Mexican narcoterrorists had led to the deaths of hundreds of Mexican citizens and US Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, who died two years ago tonight, killed by a gun smuggled by his own government.

And then today, a lunatic in Connecticut went out and killed his mother, some teachers, and a class full of kindergarteners. There are no words available to console the families, and even stating that one can cannot convey sorrow sounds trite and cliche. There really is no way to convey the unfathomable sorrow and grief and shock that the families are in right now, or to convey aid in any words. There is nothing that can be said to console them. With time, perhaps one could offer a shoulder to lean on, arms to cry in, and ears to listen. Today, there is nothing.

Today’s lunatic criminal is on the level of the Port Arthur Massacre, in which an Australian man, who was reportedly driven in part by the media reports of the Scottish Dunblane School Massacre, to go out and commit a greater act of violence. Already a madman, he identified another madman and sought to outdo the lunatic in Scotland. By the end of the Port Arthur Massacre, 35 people had been murdered and 23 more wounded.

The effects would be long-lasting, as the Australian government reacted in knee-jerk fashion by going after their citizens’ gun rights. Some classes of firearms were outright banned, others regulated and regulated until they drove out hobbyists, competitive shooters, and those who believed in Orwell’s statement that the rifle on the cabin wall insures democracy. Today, Australia has incredibly strict gun control laws, which, as usual, only have an effect on law-abiding citizens. The end result was that one madman’s rampage and a knee-jerk reaction from government resulted in harm for the entire nation.

Today, with the president, already known to be vehemently anti-gun, crying and saying that action MUST be taken, we stand on that same precipice, under threat of loss of rights.

—

When I was in college, I took many Russian culture, history, and language classes. One day in early 1999, a professor told us of how when she was a student in Russia decades before, she had a professor who spoke of US aid to Russia during WWII. The professor had spoken well of lend-lease and of how the United States had aided the Soviet Union during the war years. The professor was soon gone, whisked away by the government.

In April of 1999, two lunatics at Columbine High School in Colorado shot up their school, killing classmates and teachers and eventually themselves. In class, my professor spoke about it, wistfully noting how it was terrible that kids could get guns and how that would never happen in the old country.

I reminded her of the story of her professor that she had told us just a few days prior, and how he had been “disappeared”, along with hundreds and thousands and hundreds of thousands and millions of people by the state. In a moment, she understood, and replied simply with “oh”.

None of the lives lost at Columbine were any less important than those sent to camps to die – all were human lives killed by malevolent forces. The difference is that one malevolent force – that of a murderous madman, can never be truly contained or completely mitigated. Every single death at the hands of a madman is tragic, but ultimately a madman is limited in scale. In contrast, the malevolent force of a murderous government is nigh unlimited in scale, and can last not merely for the course of a single rampage, but can last for years, decades, and generations, committing murders on a scale that no lone madman or pair of lunatics can possibly match.

With that simple comparison, she understood in an instant that the power of a government can be held in check by an armed populace (and even a madman can sometimes be held in check by an armed populace, as seen at the New Life Church in Colorado, the Appalachian Law School, and even at the University of Texas tower shooting). The loss of life from a government with monopoly of force vastly outweighs that of individual criminals across the history of mankind; and the good citizen being disarmed enables criminal and evil men, and criminal and evil governments.

None of this is consolation to the victims of an individual madman or criminal, but it needs to be brought up as a reminder that any knee-jerk response to blame tools of a massacre cannot stop future massacres; but that denying free men the right to bear arms can ensure that there will be future massacres.

—

If you’ve never seen this before, please take a few minutes to watch. The woman speaking is Dr. Suzanna Hupp, who survived the Luby’s Massacre in Kileen, TX. Both of her parents were murdered there.

“The Second Amendment is not about duck hunting, and I know I’m not going to make very many friends saying this, but it’s about our right, all of our right to be able to protect ourselves from all of you guys up there.”

-Dr. Suzanna Hupp

–

Update: The written word has no tone, only that which a skillful writer can imbue, and an adept reader can discern. Upon rereading this post, I want to make sure it isn’t read in a tone that sounds harsh or callous. The first part is to those suffering; and to them I would say little else. No one can. The second and following parts are to everyone else, standing back from the situation even if a bit, and beginning to think about the longer view. Even that in and of itself may sound callous.

In 2005, friends in my platoon were hit by an IED and injured. Two received Purple Hearts for what we would ultimately learn were minor injuries, but that was unknown to us at the time. My response to their injuries was to push on, repair damage my vehicle had incurred and address what I could do. I had no control over what happened to my injured friends, as I have no control over the injured, traumatized, and grieving here. Nothing I can do can aid them (prayer may help, but I don’t wear that on my sleeve). The only thing I can perhaps do is offer some perspective and prevent greater tragedy in the very long run.

There will be time to understand what all went wrong (some reports note that after classes began, the school was locked down, which leads to wondering how does a madman in tactical gear carrying guns get buzzed in), but there will be some more eager to “never let a good crisis go to waste” in the words of Barack Obama’s former Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.

As gun owners, if we could just experience the grief and sorrow along with the rest of the country, instead of having it intruded upon by that impending feeling of doom about what the media, the politicians, and the people in society who don’t much care for civilian gun ownership are going to do to our lives, liberty and often times livelihood? If we could go through something like this without worrying how much we’re going to be the scapegoats? I know that’s the thought that’s been crossing my mind as this entire horror story is playing out in the media. I don’t want to think about or deal with politics right now, but that’s precisely what I have to start getting ready for if I don’t want to risk that America, and the politicians who claim to represent her, in their rashest and most impulsive worst instincts, pass a knee jerk law that will overnight turn many Americans into instant felons. There are times I believe we all deserve a break from politics. This is one of them, but we will never get it.

I believe we will not leave this horror unscathed, either mentally or politically. Our liberties and beliefs will be called into question, ridiculed, beaten, and we’ll be told to get in line for the good of everyone. This could very well be the point as which the pendulum swings back. The narrative that’s been driven home is that NRA is beaten up and bloodied, and is no longer relevant. Regardless of whether that’s true or not, what matters is what the powers that be believe. We may not believe the time now is for politics, and it shouldn’t be. But as a variation on an old saying goes: we may not be interested much in politics, but politics is very interested in us.

Reposted in its entirety, because it’s so much worth reading to understand the sentiment.

Direct quote from John Holdren’s book “Ecoscience” pg 837:To date, there has been no serious attempt in Western countries to use laws to control excessive population growth, although there exists ample authority under which population growth could be regulated. For example, under the United States Constitution, effective population-control programs could be enacted under the clauses that empower Congress to appropriate funds to provide for the general welfare and to regulate commerce, or under the equal-protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Such laws constitutionally could be very broad. Indeed, it has been concluded that compulsory population-control laws, even including laws requiring compulsory abortion, could be sustained under the existing Constitution if the population crisis became sufficiently severe to endanger the society. Few today consider the situation in the United States serious enough to justify compulsion, however.

Note also that the “usual suspects” are utilized by leftists here. The general welfare and interstate commerce clauses are cited, as well as the 14th Amendment. They’re often used as end-runs around the Constitution.

The general welfare clause is limited by the enumerated powers that follow – otherwise the Constitution would just say “govt. can do whatever means well”.

The interstate commerce clause, was intended to allow the federal govt. to prevent individual states from interfering with commerce. For example, if a good was being sold and shipped from Georgia to North Carolina and South Carolina chose to tax it along the way, the federal govt. could step in to ensure that commerce was protected.

I fail to see how “equal protection” includes forced abortions and sterilization, but I’m not a liberal advocating what amounts to genocide to “save the planet”.

From page 838:Individual rights. Individual rights must be balanced against the power of the government to control human reproduction. Some people—respected legislators, judges, and lawyers included—have viewed the right to have children as a fundamental and inalienable right. Yet neither the Declaration of Independence nor the Constitution mentions a right to reproduce. Nor does the UN Charter describe such a right, although a resolution of the United Nations affirms the “right responsibly to choose” the number and spacing of children (our emphasis).

“Our emphasis” is Holdren & Ehrlich’s.

Consider that first sentence: “Individual rights must be balanced against the power of the government to control human reproduction.” Really?

The argument for abortion is that it’s a woman’s right to her own body. The argument against is that the fetus is a human life, and therefore deserving of equal protection under the law.

The argument here is that the woman has no right to her own body against the govt’s power to murder its citizens, and the fetus has no right to exist against the power of the govt.

For once, pro-choicers and pro-lifers should have something to fundamentally agree on.

More from 838:

It is often argued that the right to have children is so personal that the government should not regulate it. In an ideal society, no doubt the state should leave family size and composition solely to the desires of the parents. In today’s world, however, the number of children in a family is a matter of profound public concern. The law regulates other highly personal matters. For example, no one may lawfully have more than one spouse at a time. Why should the law not be able to prevent a person from having more than two children?

There’s quite a bit more at Zombie’s blog. I direct you readers to read it there – as s/he went to the trouble of scanning pages of the book to show you exactly what was written. You can look at it in context, and read full quotes.

The man spent a lot of time seriously deliberating how to get around the Constitution to start sterilizing you and me. We’re an overpopulated animal on the planet to him.

Is this the kind of man you want as the advisor and regulator on science policy? Because he’s the Science Czar you have.

Much like Levar Burton on Reading Rainbow would say: “Don’t take my word for it.”

Another collection of info on John Holdren can be found here, including a video of Holdren at an event advocating zero-growth:

–Now, why is all of this terrifying? Well, according to the leftist propaganda site Media Matters, which is funded and supported by major leftist groups, this is all smear and taken out of context.

Except you can go and read it in context. All of it.

The man’s written a blueprint of how he thinks – everything from advocating forced sterilization of women to releasing sterilizing chemicals in the water supply to a global regime to mandate the population.

May as well just get these ready:

If any one of us – you, me, JBH, any member of your family, your friends, your boss or your teacher – were to write a 900-page scholarly treatise on how a certain race needed to be exterminated, we’d probably have difficulty getting a government job. If your name were attached to “Ecoscience: Population, Resources, Environment and Eskimos”, we’d be done for. You couldn’t advocate extermination of a race. Sure, Obama’s pastor Jeremiah Wright, who married he and his wife, can say vile things about “the JOOOOOS”, and that’s okay. But were he to actually write a 900 page book on how the Danes must be sterilized by poisoning their drinking water, he probably would’ve encountered some difficulty.

John Holdren escapes this by being in academia. Academia is notable for being insulated from the real world, as academics are funded by grants and free money, where all they have to do is talk to earn a living. Their ideas are tossed around, and are mostly meaningless, and they’re insulated from the effects of their nonsensical ideas due to being subsidized by alumni and those seeking tax breaks on their grants; and of course by govt. grants that never have any strings attached. Also of note, when discussing something in great detail that doesn’t matter one whit, folks will use the phrase “It’s all academic anyway” – saying that it’s a meaningless discussion with zero effect on reality or decisionmaking.

But when these eerily progressive ideas get out, they rapidly metastasize into something far worse. The “academic” ideas of phrenology and eugenics back in the 1800s and 1900s led to the conclusion that there were “superior races” and led to continued injustice against blacks in the US, who were considered subhuman by “scientists” like John Holdren. These crackpot theories dreamed up by men of letters led to entire schools of racial purity in Europe, and beyond the murder of 6-12 million and a war that killed millions more, there were also the forced abortions and sterilizations of “undesirables.”

John Holdren, like many leftist tyrants, believes in equality. All races are equally worthless to him – and he believes in egalitarian misery.

His statements of a shrinking world and Malthusian overpopulation are from the world of a zero-sum mindset. There are only so many resources and they must be divided equally, so says he – to the point that growth cannot be sustained and populations must be culled to manage resources.

Mankind are not deer on a hunting ranch or cows on a feed lot. This ignores the free market, where the individual has limitless capacity to produce and benefit everyone else in the system as well. The only limits on resources available for production (or consumption) are those placed by government.

Forced abortions. Mass sterilization. A “Planetary Regime” with the power of life and death over American citizens. The tyrannical fantasies of a madman? Or merely the opinions of the person now in control of science policy in the United States? Or both?

A while back I got into a discussion with someone over government health care. I was in the midst of reading a lot about government control of people’s lives, and rather than bring up how rationing of resources results in poorer care, I mentioned the power aspect of it. You can have “know what’s best for you” monsters in charge with government-run health care, and that of itself is terrifying.

We now have one such monster as science czar.

The main problem is one that is endemic on the left – it’s a worldview that sees life as a zero-sum game. It sees overpopulation as a problem and children as a punishment -- and the world as “lifeboat” with fixed resources.

This cynical, cold worldview is one that allows leftist/statist/collectivists to believe that they are best to be in charge because they should distribute the resources. The cynic among them is watching out for himself and putting himself in a position of power, and the do-gooder believes himself above the masses and in need of the indulgences he takes by being in power as necessary for the “greater good”. Both of them concur that they are more important than “the masses” and thus they should dictate how the world will run.

But murdering millions is of course, for the greater good – according to such masters of men.

—Reality check, folks: this shit is real. We have a man who’s entirely similar to the mass-murdering supervillains in both Tom Clancy’s novel “Rainbow Six”, who seek to obliterate humanity (except for themselves) for the good of the planet, and the water-poisoning semi-spoof supervillains of “The Tuxedo”.

The difference is that John Holdren is a real person in a real position of power to really impact your life (or the termination thereof) through his mandates. He’s already looked for end runs around the rule of law to get away with it so that he can’t be punished.

Everyone everywhere who’s ever been the victim of this kind of madman has said “it can’t happen here”. Then when it happens, “there’s nothing we can do about it.”

Spread the word. Raise your voice. Get this man and all his enablers, supporters, and his appointers removed from any office of power.

I don’t want to be saying “I told you so” and wandering the wasteland looking for gasoline for my Pursuit Special.